Kotaku repeated the question, and the ensuing answer. When asked about plans for compatibility Savage said while he would love to see it himself, he could not confirm that Microsoft is actually working on it.

It appears that the system has hardware challenges that took Microsoft by surprise. "There are [plans]," he said. "But we're not done thinking them through yet, unfortunately. It turns out to be hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on the X86 stuff. So there's nothing to announce, but I would love to see it myself."

Microsoft has aimed to make its Xbox One games console the centrepiece of your sitting room experience though, so it would seem unusual for it to insist that fans retain an Xbox 360 just so they can keep playing their favourite older games.

Microsoft has been hinting about backwards compatibility since late last year, and then it was discussing that as being some sort of cloud feature.